Sometimes magic can take place on the football field which no-one expected. Joel Amartey produced that magic which the AFL world sat back and enjoyed.
Each week 414 players hit the turf at the top level, but only a handful usually dominate sporting airspace or column inches nationwide.
Amartey's journey to the AFL wasn't always set in stone. Unlike other players mentioned above, the Sandringham product had to wait until almost the end of the draft process to hear his name called out. Amartey was the fourth last player selected in the rookie draft, the seventh Sandringham Dragon tabbed that year.
As Sydney evolved, they became more multifaceted. Sydney experimented with inverted structures and stretching their talls to different locations around the ground. "The self-belief in your strengths and what you can bring to the team was a big one he used to instil." This year Amartey has sharpened up his conversion towards goal. There was no clearer display of that than the game against Adelaide. Nine goals, one behind tells part of the story, but not the whole picture.The method, first publicly developed for AFL by Melbourne's Rob Younger, does this by comparing their shots on goal with how a modelled outcome of how others have converted similar shots considering the distance from goal and the game situation.
This not only speaks to Amartey's willingness to work for the team, but also to the evolution of the role of the key position forward over the years. At one end of the scale are first-year one-offs by the likes of John Butcher, Troy Wilson, Ben Ronke, and Majak Daw. Amartey, several years into his career, probably doesn't fit this category.There's also several who sit in the middle.Goal 9 – Quarter 4, 14:31. Contested mark, 25m out, straight in front
To date, Amartey has averaged the lowest time on ground of any regular key position forward in the league. Even factoring in the two games in which he was subbed out, it's clear that the Swans are carefully managing his workload.
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